The Demon of Razgriz
by Shadowolf27
Summary: Seekers are drones, tools of war; an imitation of life void of personality. Very few have escaped their fate, embodying an unexplainable glitch in Shockwave's studious work. A chance meeting on the battle field uncovers the beginning of something terrible and beautiful. "From the depths of despair awaken the Razgriz, Its raven wings ablaze in majestic light." D-Con centric.
1. Chapter 1

**Universe: **This Fic is loosely based off of _War for Cybertron _-where most of my internal visualization stems from- with bits and pieces of mix-verse and head-cannon. I suggest reading the one-shot under my profile, _**Seeker's Inception, **_for further backstory into this fic.

**Author's note: **This is a fic that first spawned from plot bunnies while playing one of my favorite old games: Ace Combat 5, and soon expanded into something so much more. I associate the song **_Blurry_** by Puddle of Mud with my OC Razgriz. It may have been the promotional song for AC5, but before the game ever came out it was always my favorite for her. I've had stuck this OC stuck in my head for years. I just hadn't posted before now because felt I didn't have the writing ability do her or the other seekers justice. Updates may be sporadic.

**Rating:** T for mechanical gore and mind games. Rating may go up.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Transformers.

**The Demon of Razgriz**

**By: Shadowolf27**

* * *

"_Out of the way Breakdown, or find yourself a scrapped heap under my thrusters!"_

Breakdown dived to escape a madly cackling Wildrider astroseconds before the Stunticon plowed his alternate form through a hollow energon tank. Wildrider turned wide and tore bumper first through the only un-mangled side of the containment, sending the unstable structure crashing to the ground in a shriek of metal.

"Watch where you're going, Wildrider!" Breakdown sneered. His engine shuttered from the close call and his yellow optics warily tracked each of his teammates on the field, making sure no one else was about to sneak up on his six. Satisfied he wouldn't have to dodge anymore armored vehicles that could put a Wrecker to shame; he transformed into a sleek hover vehicle and joined the demolition derby.

"Do we really have to spark-sit these slaggers? I know they don't have a lot of processing power, but this doesn't take any." Skywarp sat atop the roof of the plant's observation deck, dangling his legs over the edge with his thrusters occasionally scraping loose chunks of jagged glass from the mostly destroyed window below.

"You would know, wouldn't you?" Thundercracker muttered, earning a shrug from Skywarp. He too was on top of the deck, standing with his arms crossed over his chest, dutifully watching the Stunticons weave in and out of their own cosmic dust clouds.

Thundercracker wasn't so much curious as he was concerned about why they were 'spark-sitting' the Stunticons. He saw no purpose in destroying decrepit energon factories that had dried up vorns ago when time could be better spent searching for live energy deposits. It wasn't the first time he was questioning the integrity of his assignments; a multitude of previous deployments had been filled with seemingly menial tasks. It was possible Megatron could be losing site of the Decepticon's priorities, and his own leadership skills.

It shouldn't have disquieted Thundercracker, he was a drone made for the sole purpose of taking orders, not meant to question Megatron's cause or actions- but a dark feeling in the pit of his spark refused to settle no matter how much time passed.

The back of Skywarp's thruster knocked against the inner roof of the deck with loud clang. "This is so boring! Why does Megatron keep sending us out to bust up these old energon plants? This is worse than that time we had to patrol that backwater Autobot outpost for three orns."

Thundercracker's ruby optics glinted, unamused by his wingmate. "If this was you're doing, I don't want to hear about it."

Skywarp smiled innocently up at him. "It wasn't my fault this time, honest. I haven't had time to slag anyone off."

"Then why do I not believe you?" Starscream inquired dully while turning over a small golden sphere in his servos. The object's metallic surface was carved with elegant symbols that had lost their meaning to time, scrawled in the language of the Ancient Primes.

Thundercracker eyed the artifact with skepticism, but knew better than to ask Starscream how he came across such a thing or what he intended to do with it. His optics dulled with forced disinterest and he looked away, observing the Stunticons but not recording their actions.

Skywarp looked between Starscream, who was doing his best to look bored, and a stiff Thundercracker before clicking his glossia. "Because you never do?" Skywarp provided. After a pause he added, "Hey, TC?"

His trinemate didn't look up, his processor lost in thought.

"TC!"

The cobalt seeker gave him a sideways glance, annoyance glinting in his ruby irises.

"What's up? You've been functioning differently the last few orns. Did you download a virus?"

"I'm functioning within acceptable parameters, and I haven't contracted any viruses. Unlike _someone,_ I don't go poking around foreign systems."

"Oh, come, on! It was completely my business to go rooting through Bonecrusher's personal computer when there were rumors flying around he wanted my head on a pike. How was I supposed to know the slagger didn't know what fire walls were?!" Skywarp groused as a memory file of virus after virus uploading into his processor played in the back of his mind, the slagging things had practically sprung on him like scraplets from the poorly maintained systems.

Fully remembering the incident, but not particularly caring to relive Skywarp's glitching form rambling incoherently in misery; Starscream doused his cobalt trinemate with a light scan that made Thundercracker glare.

"His systems are fine," Starscream quipped.

Skywarp's wings twitched high over his shoulders, annoyance mixed with temporary acceptance written over his facial plates as he rested his chin in his fist.

"So," Skywarp began after a moment of quiet filled only by the squealing of metal below as the Stunticons worked. "Does Megatron think the Autobots will use this rusting facility for anything? I don't see the point in this."

"If you're so eager to find out, then why don't you go down there and help so you can ask Megatron in person sooner?" Starscream placed his trinket in subspace and began pacing the roof with his claws clasped behind his back.

Skywarp grumbled into his claw, "No thanks. Where's the fun in attacking something that doesn't move?"

"Incoming!" Drag Strip announced gleefully, shooting off an inclined pile of debris and sailing uncontrollably into the support structure of the observation deck.

The seekers jumped from the rattling building before Motormaster clobbered the weakened base, collapsing it as the trine transformed into tetrajets midair.

"_Watch where the frag you're going!"_ Starscream snarled over the Decepticon frequency.

Drag Strip only laughed in manic joy and backed out of the rubble with chunks of metal and wire cascading off his frame.

"_Come on Starscream. Come and join the fun!"_ Wildrider whooped.

"_I would hardly count your menial task as 'fun',"_ the Air Commander sneered.

"_slag-for-processors is just jealous he doesn't have an indestructible force field. He would end up a crumpled scrap heap with that shoddy armor,"_ Breakdown rumbled teasingly.

"_Breakdown: less talking and more destruction,"_ Motormaster reprimanded.

"_On it boss."_

Thundercracker followed Starscream in a lazy loop around the perimeter with Skywarp falling into close formation at his side. Light emitted from the very core of the planet, reflecting off their sharply angled armor and the glow of their thrusters that blazed through the haze of Cybertron's permanent twilight.

* * *

A crunch of metal and a chorus of whooping laughter rang through the Decepticon rec room, though the metallic chortles of amusement hardly registered in Thundercracker's audios.

He took another sip of his energon cube while leaning against the far wall, watching his wingmate humiliate a fellow 'Con over the rim of his fuel. Swindle was lying in a crumpled heap, energon leaking from his optics and an injured shoulder joint after becoming the latest victim of Skywarp's. The black and purple seeker that was doubled over, engine revving with laughter, had rigged one of the energon dispensers to shock a victim's systems into a temporary glitch before promptly launching a rocket into their face plates- or whatever appendage the unguided weaponry happened to hit.

Most of the Decepticons already knew about the contraption, being past victims themselves, but the reconfigured machine had stood in the corner of the rec room, untouched and mostly forgotten- until now. Swindle, who had only returned a few joors ago, unknowingly activated the machine while under the false pretense of retrieving some much needed fuel.

"That was perfect, absolutely supreme!" Skywarp's metallic laughter triggered the Decepticons circling the spectacle to join in with insulting whoops directed at Swindle.

"Frag you, Skywarp!" Swindle spit a glob of energon out of his mouth onto the floor and tried to stand, but Skywarp stomped him back into the ground with a gleeful smirk.

Skywarp aimed a small blaster mounted on his arm in Swindle's face, tapping the gun's nozzle against the merchants face. "Where do you think you're going in such a hurry? We're only having a little fun."

With a snarl Swindle procured a blaster from subspace and sought to blast the source of his humiliation in the face plates. Skywarp knocked the weapon away before a shot could be fired, pinned swindle's arm to his own body, and stabbed his pointed fingers through the already injured shoulder of the smaller Decepticon. The wound shred like paper under Skywarp's needle like claws, and Swindle grabbed at the arm that was now protruding from his chassis.

"You're not attacking your superior, are you? Face it Swindle, I'm better than you," Skywarp stated gleefully just before ripping his hand cleanly out, taking nothing with it but staining energon and causing Swindle to snarl in pain.

Thundercracker couldn't help but calculate that his trinemate would be singing a different tune if the other Combaticons had been present. They wouldn't have tolerated such treatment of one of their own without a few lost limbs.

He didn't know why Skywarp found such amusement in tormenting his coworkers, there was nothing in his base programing that would compel him to create useless devices for the sole purpose of entertainment. Thundercracker never questioned it anymore, he was just glad the pranks were never aimed at him, not directly anyway. He'd also had enough experience that he could spot Skywarp's handy work a mile away and deftly avoid the traps.

Thundercracker took another swig of energon, keeping an eye on the Decepticons in the vicinity, but not paying them any particular mind. Everything was normal, nothing had changed in vorns, and again it bothered him. Yes, they were winning the war, the Autobot's inferior frames proving to be nothing more than cannon fodder for the Decepticons that were mostly created from military structures; but an unsettling feeling in the pit of spark refused to be chased away. Megatron's tactics were growing less confrontational; he was sending soldiers to destinations that hadn't been touched in stellar cycles. High ranking ones like himself, no less. It wasn't logical.

His logic processor told him everything was fine, the Decepticons were winning; he was overreacting, and the intangible, disquieted part of his spark was a mere glitch. He shifted uncomfortably, removing some of the weight he had been pressing on his wings by leaning against the wall.

"TC, you ok?"

He had noticed Skywarp's approach, but had ignored him until he spoke. Swindle was long gone, slapped in the back and nearly tripped on his way out while leaking energon and throwing curses at every 'Con in the room whether they joined in his humiliation or merely watched passively from the sidelines.

Thundercracker gave Skywarp a dubious look to which the purple seeker added, "You've been…off lately. Don't deny it because I can feel it through the bond. Something's been bothering you."

Thundercracker continued to glare, his annoyance blatantly flickering through the trine bond.

"Did someone say something to get under your plates? I'll teach them a lesson if they have." Skywarp looked giddy at the prospect of dealing out his own flavor of punishment.

"No, just, thinking." Thundercracker drained the last of his energon and collapsed the cube to stow it in subspace.

"We'll, stop it. Your thinking is making my own plates itch," Skywarp grouched and slid closer, thunking his back against the wall and crossing his arms.

Thundercracker crossed his arms as well, expanding his wings over his trinemate's shoulder possessively as he continued to sort out his thoughts as to what foreign discomfort was niggling at his spark. The nearness of Skywarp helped a little, but not much, especially when Skywarp kept sending physical glances and unappreciated prodding through the bond to try and get Thundercracker to tell him what was on his processor.

Thundercracker was about ready to blast him for his pestering when the communication indicator on his HUD lit up.

:Lord Megatron requires your presence for a mission: -Soundwave

A data packet came with the Communication Officer's chillingly monotone voice that gave a brief description as to what was expected of him.

"Brilliant," Thundercracker muttered as he unpacked the compressed file in his processor.

"What's that?" Delight crossed Skywarp's features in hopes that Thundercracker was about to spill his thoughts.

"I'm needed for a mission."

Skywarp's wings collapsed behind him and he wilted on the spot. "But we just got back. Why haven't I been contacted, too?"

"Apparently only I am needed." Thundercracker frowned, already uncomfortable with the mission parameter's orders.

"That's fragged up. Starscream or I should be going with you," Skywarp snarled quietly and pulled away from Thundercracker.

"I agree, but with the trends of how operations have been proceeding lately, I should be able to manage."

Skywarp produced an empty cube from subspace, already walking away to fill it with energon. "Fine, whatever. See you in a few joors."

* * *

The metallic tang of spilled energon and the acrid scent of scorched metal wafted into her olfactory sensors like a familiar perfume. Below the shadow of her wings, Razgriz circled a freshly abandoned battle field, her distil sensors cast over the landscape in search of life. Not even a heat signature blipped on the radar as she circled like a hawk while her processor crudely crafted an aerial map of the jagged terrain.

She swooped low and transformed twenty feet from the ground. Her wings slid up her spinal strut and her body unfurled from a tetrajet altmode into her root form. With vorns of practice, she dropped gracefully to the ground in a crouch on her heeled thrusters. Her sensors flared wider, seeking out hidden opponents or potential threats. Nothing but residual charges clinging to the landscape from mechs long gone spiked her net. It was unlikely she would find anything; the battle field had all the signs of a hit and run, a chance meeting that had surprised both sides and resulting in a messy, and quick fire fight.

The chance of finding Energon or other useful materials was a depressingly low, but she had to keep looking. Skirmishes between the two main warring factions had slowed to a sporadic trickle which meant less raw materials sitting around. There had been a lull in the war for the past Vorn and it had made savaging, an already poorly productive profession, even harder to live by.

She couldn't remember the last time her systems functioned beyond sixty percent, and she was beginning to experience complications from extended energon deprivation. Three mega cycles, was her chronometer's chipper reply in the form of a stream of numbers.

"Nobody asked you," she grouched under her breath while picking her way over the landscape while dutifully reading sensor feedback.

Silence reigned supreme as she scoured the field. Without a factory or bunker nearby, there was nothing but the occasional draft of artificial wind brushing past her sensitive wings. Her violet optics brightened when an interesting signature spiked across her net. Razgriz followed the source behind an outcropping and found a pile of bodies, seekers to be exact if their identical body designs were anything to go by. The lifeless frames painted a uniform black and purple lay sprawled across the ground like pathetic, useless garbage. She wasn't surprised no one had bothered to remove them. They were just drones, after all.

Her servos searched their darkened frames, looking for anything useful. Maybe a weapon or standardized repair equipment. Heck, she'd even take some polish from one of these suckers. It was highly unlikely the drones carried any cosmetics; it would be rather comical if they had, but she really could have done with a repainting and wax job. Her onyx armor was beginning to turn grey, and the crimson patches on her wings, arms, and knee plates were fading. Part of the problem was her energon deprivation, leeching the color from her. The small yellow cockpit adoring her chest was mostly clean, its upkeep almost as important as her wings because of the sensory equipment it protected, but it could have used a little touch up itself.

Razgriz turned another seeker on its back, expecting her search of its subspace to be just as fruitless as the last when it lashed out at her. She shrieked in surprise as its claw gouged a hole in her side and its other hand transformed into a small laser cannon. The drone stopped abruptly, its weapon humming at a point between her optics for the fraction of a second before lowering its weapon upon recognizing Razgriz glaring down at it with distaste.

"Or-or-d-ders?" it ground out through a sparking vocal processor.

Without a flicker of remorse Razgriz aimed the blaster on her arm and shot the drone through its cracked spark chamber. She didn't know why the things always thought of her as their superior. It was a mercy on her part to end their miserable existence rather than let them rust, waiting for a master that would never return.

Razgriz rummaged around the seeker carcasses and found a few useful scraps for patching up leaks, but not much else. She left the carnage to rust, her spark heavy with the lack of any salvageable energon. She could have siphoned their lines, but she didn't have the tools, nor did she have the will to resort to cannibalism. A flashing icon on her HUD, an incessant reminder of her low energy levels, mocked her.

Her pedes pulled her across the vacant land, its features war torn with old battle scars marring the husk landscape. Razgriz vented heavily, a rush of hot air escaping into Cybertron's chilled atmosphere. If her bad luck continued to hold out, it would be long before she joined one of the billions of unmarked graves littering the planet. Sometimes she wondered why she was even trying, digging her thrusters against the motions of her hollow life in a constant struggle to survive. Most of the time she felt on autopilot, so much so that she would often worry she had given in to her drone programing. It was still there, lurking in her systems. A strain of code that had failed to break her personality construct through sheer chance.

A small part of her refused to give up, baring its fangs at her origins. It may have been caused by her relative youth of several vorns, surviving as a flicker of hope clinging to the depths of her spark.

Her pede slipped on a wet substance, the viscous liquid smearing over her sensitive thrusters. Razgriz jumped back, startled, and peered down at a fresh puddle of processed energon. She bent down and placed a servo in the mess, feeling the warmth that still trickled from the liquid. She looked further ahead, noting a splattered, glowing blue trail heading in one direction. Her battle computer pushed to the front, onlining her weapons and warming her system. Her sensors recoiled from their wide search to become more sensitive to only a few yards from her position as she slowly followed the trail.

After only a few steps she sensed a beating spark. Its unprotected energy pulsed weakly on her scanners, spiking erratically on her display. She crouched lower and masked her spark signature, nearly snuffing out her presence entirely. Her thrusters clicked softly as she traced the source, crouching around Cybertron's natural protection.

It wasn't long until she saw him; a mech slumped with his back against a wall for support and sitting in a forming pool of his own energon. The blue life blood flowed in streams down his battered frame, glowing against his armor in the twilight. His cockpit was fractured, the sensitive wiring inside exposed and sparking and the wings on his back were slumped, stained with burns and punctured through from laser fire.

She would have thought him an Autobot with his cobalt coloring, but his wings were proudly displaying the unmistakable symbol of the Decepticons. His build was large for a seeker too, different somehow, yet still essentially the same as the other drones. He groaned; a garbled cough grating from his vocalizer filling with fluids.

Razgriz crept closer, keeping her frame hidden behind a pile of rubble. The seeker was close to falling into forced stasis, one he would likely never wake from without medical help. She calculated the probability of his functionality, wondering if he would have the energy to attack her, or if he would recognize what she was and remain placated like the others. Her spark pounded as her logic processor screaming at her to either end his life and search his corpse, or move on- but something kept her rooted as an old memory file edged to the front of her processor.

When she wasn't even a vorn old, and her caretaker was still online, she had tried to bring a damaged seeker home. Her youngling processor thought she had found a flier just like her, somebot she could be friends with without Archer yelling at her about getting too close to others. The thing had followed her demand to follow her 'home', and she had naively presented it with pride to her caretaker as her new friend. Archer had snarled, his red optics narrowing before he plunged his claws into the drone's chest, ripping out its still beating spark before her very optics. It had been the day she learned about what seekers really were: abominations, slaves, and that somehow she was different. It caused the view of her place in the world to suddenly change.

Razgriz felt like a youngling all over again as she crept up to the seeker and stopped to hover so close that she could have reached out and touched him. Still, he didn't seem to notice her.

"Hey? Anybot in there?" she chuckled humorlessly and tapped his shoulder.

The seeker jolted at the contact and instinctively grabbed her wrist in a vice. His optics looked up at her, glowing ruby irises fritzing behind their glass casings. There was pain and anger behind them, something a drone shouldn't have been able to convey.

Her battle computer screamed along with her logic processor, the programs feeding her how much pressure was being placed on her wrist and how much more force was needed before it snapped or a line ruptured. Equally, it told her how to pry away from his grip and send a blast through his spark casing. Pain was flaring from the slowly crushing armor around her wrist, but she held still.

"Do-on't t-tou-ch m-e," the seeker ground out between misfired surges of electricity within his frame.

His grip, wet with his own energon, slipped from her wrist to land uselessly at his side with a wet slap. His optics, full of struggling emotions, followed soon after- going dark as his systems forced him into stasis.

Razgriz stayed crouched over the seeker, observing his unconscious shudders of pain that rattled his armor. His spark was struggling to hang on even while his pump spewed his life energy, further staining the ground around her pedes. The seeker hadn't looked at her lifelessly, waiting on her command like so many others. It had spoken directly to her, even threatened her. There had been intelligence in his dulled optics, a burning fire radiating from his fight with his own systems.

Her logic processor was snarling at her before she had formed a complete thought, but it went unheeded. He was different, the seeker had recognized her the same way any other normal bot would. She wanted to speak with him more, to find out if there really was another seeker like her.

Razgriz wasn't a medic, but she made due with her meager skills. She had never worked on damage this extensive, but she did her best, sticking to the basics. She staunched the flow of energon cascading off his frame and roughly patched critical wiring. The medical files she had were outdated, but extensive, including a detailed file on seeker physiology. The only thing holding her back was her inexperience and lack of proper tools.

_You can't save him, even if you want to. You don't have enough energon reserves to sustain him or bring him out of stasis. _Her logic processor chided her, listing all of the reasons this was a stupid idea while her sensors tallied up the damage she was finding, calculating the chances of his continued functionality. All of the numbers pointed towards his inevitable deactivation. She ignored the data and turned a blind eye to her logic processor, she was still going to try.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's note:** If you're interested in mood music I often listen to Linkin Park's The Catalyst remix by NoBrain when writing this fic.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Transformers.

* * *

Subroutines blipped online, performing a complete systems check after suffering a full and unexpected shutdown. The results of the scan were bundled and shoved to his attention, listing off system wide damages that his unconscious mind assessed - some of the damage was critical, but stable enough to trigger primary operations. The climbing buzz of his internal hardware reached their height, his pain receptors flared onlined with his optics, and no one had bothered to place a temporary lock on his nervecircuits.

Thundercracker wasn't conscious of his actions as he lurched out of stasis, thrashing at an enemy that was no longer there. He took one step off the recharge berth and his knees buckled, unable to support his tremendous weight. Plating screeched against his joints as he came crashing to his hands and knees, an explosion of pain ripping through his wing struts and midsection. Heat radiated from seemingly everywhere as red warnings popped up across his HUD.

A muffled, "You shouldn't be up yet," was the first thing he consciously heard above his own rapidly spinning cooling fans.

Thundercracker's optics flickered upwards as awareness finally filled them, and he registered a dully lit berth room through his hazy vision.

A distinctly feminine chuckle surprised his audials. "I would help you, but I have the feeling you would just tear my arm off."

His optics finished calibrating, drawing the room – dusted with rust and decay – into sharp focus, and for a moment he thought his systems had glitched. Standing in the door way with one bluntly clawed servo clutching the door frame was a femme seeker. He hadn't seen the likes of one of those in over a hundred vorns.

Her frame was unmistakable, tall and lithe, built for flexibility and speed with sweeping wings mounted to her back struts. Her paint was dull from neglect, but he could tell she was mostly black with patches of grey and aesthetic touches of crimson. The colors weren't that of a typical drone – black and purple – and her optics were an intriguing violet hue that glowed off her silver cheek plates.

"Am I-am I in-the med. bay at Darkmount?" His vocals ground unpleasantly as he struggled to form a coherent inquiry for the drone.

"No, you're in my home," she said easily. "I found you on the battle field and repaired you, sort of. You're not in danger of offlining anymore, but I don't have the equipment or medical skills to make you recover quickly." She appeared more perturbed than regretful about her shortcomings, and though she hadn't answered him outright, it was clear enough that the answer to his question was 'no'.

Thundercracker stiffened. His battle computer was still whirring when his fist clinched and his arm mounted blaster unrolled from subspace. He lined her into its sight, shifting his massive weight on his knees and other hand. The movement sent lacing pain up his side and he ground his denta plates together as he struggled to maintain his pitiful defensive position. He didn't trust letting his guard down to this drone - there was something off about it.

"Then what are you? An Autobot, Decepticon? For what purpose have you brought me here?" He snarled through hoarse vocals that ended in a coughing fit, splattering old, congealed energon on the floor.

The femme seeker canted her helm at him like an intrigued creature, studying his struggle against his own damaged frame. "Neither of your assumptions are correct. I'm a Neutral so I have no interest in your factions. You're here because-" She hesitated, glancing about the room before studying his battered frame as if debating whether or not to reveal something she wasn't supposed to.

It wasn't logical, drones didn't ponder or show signs of emotion; she must have been lying. He had run across a few fliers on the Autobot's side - the Aerialbots. Their design was always inferior, but the enemy could have finally created a suitable imitation of a seeker, at least at a glance. Though, he couldn't see any faction symbols which helped back her Neutral claim. Perhaps it was a part of their ruse.

"I wanted to talk, to know your designation," she confessed with a quirked half smile, looking as if she didn't believe the answer any more than he did.

Thundercracker evaluated her, looking for anything that would give her away as an undercover Autobot. Her design was flawless, identical to what his memories banks could recall of femme seekers – purposely more speed and maneuverability as opposed to the mech version's brute strength, tall, and predatory in design. Her arm blasters were retracted into subspace and her wings were sticking straight up, twitching every once in a while with otherwise hidden nervousness to his critical assessment and lack of verbal input.

When he didn't answer she took a cautious step into the room. Thundercracker raised his weapon higher and a grunt of pain escaped him as he nearly collapsed under the pain that seared through his circuitry.

"Your weapons are offline. Let me help you back onto the berth, you're straining your already overtaxed systems." She stood off to the side, willingly subjecting to his silent scrutiny until he made up his mind.

Thundercracker was disgusted by the position he had been placed in, he couldn't even get off the floor by himself without collapsing back in pain. There wasn't much of a choice but to cautiously accept the femme's help.

"F-fine," he sputtered shakily.

She approached slowly, heeding his pained growl with healthy hesitation and a concerning amount of captivated intrigue. She bent down in front of him and slung an arm around his waist, mindful of the mending tear in his midsection and avoiding contact with his sore cockpit. She was the most conscience about not brushing his throbbing wings. With her support he stood, leaning most of his weight on the smaller femme seeker as she helped him slowly back to the makeshift berth where he was carefully laid on his back.

He tightened his grip on her shoulders, using her for support as he bit down on his denta plates. The pressure the position put on his wings hurt like slag, but was undeniably the best he could do since his cockpit was in an even more fragile condition. If he were to lie on his stomach his own weight would crack the newly mended glass and damage the sensory equipment inside.

The femme didn't comment as he rode out the pain and flaring warnings of an eminent stasis lock. She merely grunted in discomfort as he clutched her armor until it bent under his servos. When his exploding pain sensors faded to a manageable burn, he released his hold and she backed off with several shrugs of her shoulders in an attempt to shake off the bruising pain he had caused.

Her voice came off a bit strained. "You're in pretty rough shape, but better than before. Your repair nanites have been taking care of most of the damage so it's slow going." Despite the news being a massive damper on any plans of escape, she appeared pleased, almost smug as a lopsided smile graced her mouth plates as she peered down at miserable state.

"Why? If you're not a Decepticon, why help me?" The only logical explanation was she was an Aerialbot digging for information.

"Are your processors glitching?" she asked with all seriousness. "I didn't see any damage to your cranial." She moved in for a closer look, but refrained from touching him as if uncomfortable to do so, or it could have been the pointed glare he was giving her.

"Why would my designation be so important?" Thundercracker backpedaled to avoid changing the subject entirely.

"Just wondering if you have one, other than a number, that is" she shrugged, still wearing that unreadable half smile. "You are a seeker, correct?"

Red warnings returned to scream over her words, drowning his aching processor with their chimes. His systems were shutting down despite his valiant attempts to belay them as they prepared to drag him into stasis.

"Maybe," he muttered groggily as he was pulled into another stasis lock.

* * *

He was denied resting in the blissful nothingness of a full systems shut down, he woke often from a repeating memory glitch of his last battle, and each time he optics onlined he worried he was suffering a hallucinatory glitch.

The fight that had placed him in such a sorry state was an assignment that started out simple enough. The Autobots were supposedly transporting a large cache of supplies and he was designated to lead a small strike group to retrieve whatever could be found. He had dived in, ordering his squad of seeker drones to engaging the caravan with the intent of leaving no survivors. The fight went as expected- scrambling Autobots dropping left and right under his superior fire power – until the enemy received unexpected back up.

A traveling squad of former Elite Guards happened to stumble upon the skirmish and blindsided him while he was thrusters were on the ground. There was no room for escape as they quickly rendered his flight capabilities useless. It was all he could do to get away with his life while the drones provided a distraction.

The whole ordeal was embarrassing; starting with the surprise attack that thwarted his ambush to the continual taunting of the enclosed walls and almost ghost like femme seeker that drifted in and out at odd times. There wasn't room for the itch of flight to burn through his circuitry; they were too preoccupied with the pain that wracked his whole frame. In a way it was something to be thankful for, he might have gone insane otherwise.

The room was too quiet, and Thundercracker had lost track of how long he had been cooped up between each stasis term. There was no Skywarp or Starscream there to bother him – he had slammed the bond closed after receiving his first grievous injury – and no Stunticons or other unruly Decepticons rampaging through the halls. He even almost missed the ominous scrape of Soundwave's symbiots as they prowled the halls, relaying all they saw and heard to their master.

His surroundings never changed, no matter how much he willed it to – the same neat piles of scrape lined the aged confines, and an ancient desk stood out as the only other real furniture in the space. He was often alone, but the femme would appear periodically to check he was still functioning and to ask more absurd questions that he either never answered or fell into stasis before he could.

She fed him energon, sparingly, and he was almost too weak to refuel under his own power. It was as if she was trying to draw out his recovery as much as possible, forcing his body to repair itself at a snail's pace. He wanted to smash the femme drone that held him captive into the wall, to dent her wings so she couldn't follow, and escape this Pit that was messing with his processor. But he couldn't; his servo circuits wouldn't support his structure weight, his wings were too tattered to withstand flight, and he would fall unconscious before ever making it to the door. He was trapped.

* * *

"Look what I found!"

Thundercracker had been meditating with his optics offlined, contemplating on how soon he would be flight worthy when the femme seeker came crashing into the room like an excited sparkling.

His battle computer whined to life, searching for an immediate threat, and all his recently repaired sensors could find was the femme balancing a tower of filled energon cubes, glowing bright pink against her wild grin.

"You won't believe how much energon I found! You should have seen the stash I took them from. The Autobots were transporting a shipment full when Decepticons attacked and I managed to snatch some while they were busy slagging each other."

She carefully placed her spoils on the ground by the door, trying not to send the tower of cubes flying, and picked up one of the containers.

"They'll still have to be rationed, but at least now we won't offline from starvation."

She handed him the cube and he took it with bemused optics. Her suddenly perky demeanor was new, she often preferred to silently observe while throwing off beat inquiries into their limited conversations, and he'd never seen anyone but Skywarp so excited over a cube of low-grade energon.

"Go ahead; you can have the whole thing, it might give your systems the kick start it needs." Her smile fell a bit. "I regret that your recovery has been so slow; part of it is because of how little energon I have to spare. I was already stretched thin before you came along and guzzled nearly all of it."

It was true that in between his confused awakenings and stasis she had appeared to be wasting away. It was a textbook example of the condition a mech would be in – rapidly fading paint sheen and dulling optics when their systems were nearly depleted of energon and on the verge of starvation. He couldn't fathom why she would take him in if she knew there wasn't enough energon to support them both, it was illogical.

He noted how her optics were brighter than the last time he saw her, she must have already consumed some of the new supply. He took the energon to his mouthpiece, not even caring if it could be drugged or otherwise tampered with. His systems were starving, and once the first drop found his glossia, he couldn't help but chug the entire cube.

"Feel better?" She asked from her new perch on the desk.

His reply had come to be expected. "Why are you keeping me here?"

He couldn't tally how many times the question had left his vocals, ones that were now functioning at optimum capacity. Most of his wounds were healed over, but still tender. His systems crash had messed with his inner chronometer as well. He didn't truly know how long he had been cooped up in the room, but since rebooting, nearly five months had passed.

Though her voice was carefully neutral, he could still detect the miffed undertone. "I'm not forcing you to be here. Your own injuries are keeping you berthridden. As soon as you're able to leave under your own power, you can. I'm not your jailer." Her answer was also somewhat expected. She always defended he was allowed to leave whenever he saw fit, but it didn't mean he believed her.

The femme's wings sagged a bit and a lonely expression took up her facial plates despite her earlier cheer. She recovered quickly though, shifting her seemingly conflicted emotional state at a speed that he would have had trouble keeping up with if he hadn't known a seeker with similar personality quirks. She couldn't have been one though; she was nothing but an Autobot spy.

"You know, you've been here for a while and I still don't know your designation."

Thundercracker managed to look offended while he had his face stuck halfway inside the empty energon cube, his optics glaring through the bottom of the clear container. His half full tank churned, begging for more, but it was obvious the femme was having trouble coming by energon. He understood the need to ration, even if his systems protested the opposite.

"And you'll never get it, so quit asking."

She seemed to be oblivious to the fact he was a part of Megatron's command trine, and he wanted to keep it that way.

"Stubborn," she muttered and turned to stack the energon, opening a hidden panel in the wall of the room to place them inside.

Her back was turned to him, seemingly unaware of the danger he poised even while injured, and especially with his weapons now online. He hadn't been sure whether to believe it or not when during one of his more lucid awakenings he found his overridden defenses – that were locked down by a high ranking medical officer's codes that certainly didn't belong to the femme – unshackled. It made him wonder if there was another mech around, but he hadn't traces of another transformer and the femme seemed confident that they were the only ones inhabiting the bunker. It's possible the codes were stolen, but he would be researching this Archer mech that was mentioned in the command, later.

The femme was almost finished placing the energon cubes into the wall compartment when Thundercracker needled her for the umpteenth time, trying to get the fake seeker to blow her cover.

"What do the Aerialbots call you?" He asked darkly, poised to read the minutest of unconscious movements his question stirred.

She looked over her wing, confusion knitted across her facial plates. "The what? What are Aerialbots?"

She didn't even twitch, not a jump in her systems when he asked. She really had no idea.

"Flying Autobots, a petty imitation of seekers," he scoffed.

The femme abandoned her stocking of the energon cubes and took a chair that sat next to his berth and perched upon it.

"Autobots can fly now?" She asked with a cant of her head, intrigue filling her optics once again. "Are they drones, too? Were they made the same way as Seekers?"

She was like a curious youngling hungry for her first download instructions on how to spar. Thundercracker didn't see how satiating her curiosity could harm anything, this time anyway, and he might learn something about what she was.

"All I've heard are rumors, but supposedly they were mechs reconfigured with avian frames. They aren't true fliers."

The news made her wings wilt, sweeping back and pinching together while disappointment flitted across her face plates.

"Not seekers then," she solemnly confirmed.

"You have an unhealthy fascination with seekers," Thundercracker rumbled dryly.

She looked at him as if the answer should be obvious. "We'll, I'm one myself. Isn't it natural that I would seek out my own kind?"

His logic processor stuttered, torn between telling him it was impossible and connecting the links he had been observing over his stay that molded her words into truth. It couldn't be possible, the chance of a seeker retaining their personality core and resisting the drone coding that destroyed it was so infinitesimal that it couldn't be given a percentage. The only seekers in existence that had won against such odds were him, his trine, and one other seeker unit. For one out of the thousands of seekers that had been built, to be one of those few lucky sparks that Shockwave had deemed a glitch, a femme no less, was near mythological. It was even more impossible that one retaining their personality could have slipped beyond Shockwave's reach without notice, or did he already know?

Her build wasn't so surprising, there were femme seeker drones still existing, but only a few. After Megatron had given the order to destroy all femme's, Autobot and Decepticon alike, he had switched to making only mech seekers. Femme seekers were becoming increasingly scarce, like the rest of their gender, despite being spared from the genocide because of their mindless drone function. They had even participated in destroying scores of femmes and sparklings across the planet. It never bothered Thundercracker how many of the mindless models he found dead, they weren't really living.

Yet, out of seemingly nothing but the ashes of this stale war, a burning gem has managed to crawl out from under the ruins of Cybertron; a mythical creature that if real shouldn't be allowed to scrape on their hands and knees, desperately surviving on its own. It wouldn't have mattered if she were a mech; any seeker with a retained personality core was something to be treasured.

Thundercracker sat up and scooted to the edge of the berth, sitting so close that his knees nearly touched hers as he leaned in to study her optics. The femme sat frozen, watching him cautiously as her cooling fans kicked in, no doubt her battle computer warming up in surprise.

"You are a Seeker?" He asked doubtfully, slowly raising a pointed claw to place under her chin for inspection.

"Affirmative." Her voice was nearly a whisper, but deadly serious as she allowed him to move her head with the light yet demanding pressure of his single servo.

He looked into her violet optics, taking note of her awareness, a searching gaze that peered his own, yearning for him accept her existence.

"Why are you not a Decepticon?" he growled with a threatening rev of his engine, verbally striking one last time to make sure this wasn't all a trick.

She pulled away sharply, fueled by instinct as she fling away and to her feet, curling her fists into a defensive stance that had been ingrained into her circuitry's memory. She relaxed after realizing he wasn't coming at her, but only marginally. He was still watching with accusing, blood thirsty optics. The moment her defenses failed, and her real intentions were revealed, he would rip her to shreds.

"I was never with the Decepticons. I was raised, hiding with my creator," she said matter of fact.

Thundercracker glared, his own battle computer placing his weapons on a hair trigger. "Seeker's don't have creators."

"I know that," she snapped. "He was a surrogate creator, but just as good as a real one. Don't you _ever_ insult him or I'll personally rip your wings off."

Thundercracker's engines revved louder this time. The twin thrusters on his heels itched to take off so he could bodily slam her into the wall where she would shatter.

The femme dropped her stance by another fraction, anger burning in her optics and vibrating her frame, her own engine was now growling at him.

"You seem well enough. The energon must be kicking in. If you're feeling so well then why don't you take your leave?" Her words were bitten out with poorly concealed tension. They were both ready for a fight.

She swiftly turned her back on him with a jerk, intending to leave before they both snapped – big mistake. Thundercracker lunged with a furious roar even as his frame loudly protested the sudden movement.

He barreled straight for her, the cables in his arms and legs taught as he aimed to punch her to the ground in a powerful swing where she would be rendered defenseless, and he could tear her frame to pieces. It was as if she had eyes on the back of her head, or the acute sensors of a seeker. The femme leapt out of the way, using her thrusters to spring sideways down the outside hall. Thundercracker collided with the wall just outside the room, ramming face first into the unyielding surface. His optics fritzed and his processor jarred at the sudden impact that made his wounds burn in a tearing sensation.

"Feel better?"

He turned on the femme with seething optics, but the fire from moments ago had been snuffed out, replaced with tired contempt. The recent, yet small dosage of energon had quickly zapped frame and freshly repaired damage was still dragging down his functioning capacity. The energy to fight had fled him, but he still had an unsuitable burning need to transform and escape on his wings. From his earlier assessment he calculated that if he went slowly enough - even with his injuries - he could make it to Darkmount under his own power. All he had to do was find his way out of the pit hole.

His optics must have betrayed his thoughts, pleading with her to release him because she dropped her defensive stance all together with a heavy vent.

"You really should go, it's not healthy to stay cooped up so long. Follow me; I'll take you to the surface."

She turned, placing her back to him with confidence that he would fallow as she sauntered down the hall.

Thundercracker stood slowly, testing his footing. When his equilibrium returned, and his pedes remembered how to hold his weight, he followed her with his wings held tightly above him. His optics traced the back of her leading form, trying to comprehend the magnitude of what she possibly was while the rest of his attention was torn on his renewed longing for the sky, and his trine. His spark ached to be with them, he could have called out orns ago for their assistance, but he had kept their bond clamped firmly shut, wanting to spare them the agony of his wounds – and he would never allow himself to be rescued from such a pitiful state. He would make it back under his own power.

True to her word the femme led him up through an ancient underground bunker void of any life forms besides themselves and to the outside. He hadn't even known they were underground. It explained the uncontrollable itch to fly that he had pressed down on him every time he was half way conscience. The uncomfortable pressure lifted marginally as he finally looked up at the sky, drinking in the ribbons of purple and green cosmic clouds that ghosted over the stars above.

"So, this is goodbye." Disappointment dripped from the femme's quiet words and made Thundercracker take pause of his new found freedom, just within reach, and look down at his captor for the past few months. His processor felt clearer with the empty sky above. He had been lying to himself; she never had any intention to keep him against his will. She had never strapped him down to the berth and had even onlined his weapon, allowing him to keep his defenses, a powerful gesture in itself. Even if her intentions had originally stemmed from something other than a burning curiosity, she never followed through with it.

Cybertron's sky called to him again, his wings and thrusters ached while his spark wrenching in its casing in anticipation to take flight. He resisted, if only briefly. If she was what she claimed to be, a femme seeker with an intact personality, he was about to leave with the looming possibly of never seeing her again.

"Thundercracker."

Her sleek helm shot up, her violet optics piercing him with restrained anticipation. "What is that?" she asked despite knowing exactly what he meant, yet unwilling to believe it.

"My designation is Thundercracker."

"Thundercracker," she repeated as if the word was alien. "My designation is Razgriz."

He continued to stare, not sure how to respond, but his attentive presence was enough recognition for her.

A mischievously quirked smile slowly spread over her mouth plates. "Don't land yourself in more trouble on your way back to the Decepticons. I won't be there to find your sorry carcass."

Thundercracker glared, his wings sweeping high in offense as he resisted the urge to angrily rev his engine. She only grinned more, both sides of her mouth now turning upwards.

"Never again," he ground out before transforming and jetting off into Cybertron's sky before she could say something else to fluster his logic processor, flying away from the mythical creature and the underground tunnels he hoped to never see again.

* * *

Thundercracker briefly wondered if it were possible to forget how to fly after being grounded for so long. His illogical fears were scattered the moment artificial wind swept over his wings and his thrusters propelled him forwards at a maintained speed. Despite numerous internal warnings he had to remember to pace his flight and not allow the urge to return to Darkmount to eat up his fuel reserves. He couldn't jet towards his destination as quickly as he had left the strange creature behind him, so he cruised – simply enjoying the weightless feel of flight and the freedom it provided his body and mind.

His frame still ached fiercely; his systems were pestering him by throwing cautions across his HUD, reminding him how frail his wounds still were. He had been through worse; he had just never healed with only the help of his own repair nanites before.

As much as he was enjoying his first flight since before his injuries, the moment he was within twenty-cerses of Darkmount, he focused inwardly on his closed off bonds. His spark wouldn't be denied any longer, and he decided he was close enough to no be considered a failure at returning under his own power.

He gently probed the two intertwined bonds that were unique to a trine, and it was all he could do to stay air born when they exploded open.

Panic and rage flooded his spark from Skywarp and Starscream, both wingmates slamming him with silent demands that had been bottled up until now. He let their tidal wave of emotions swallow him as he provided his own relief, and slight amusement to which neither took very well. Thundercracker wasn't the least bit surprised when the air above him distorted and a bang that sounded like a gunshot echoed across the sky. He transformed midair, pausing to hover on his thrusters as Skywarp came careening into him with a murderous fire in his optics.

They collided, Skywarp's fist finding purchase on Thundercracker's facial plates with a resounding bang that vibrated the surrounding air and sent them into a spiral that was easily corrected with their thrusters.

"You slagging fragger- rust for processors- no good- fragged up-" Skywarp raked his optics over Thundercracker, throwing scan after scan on his trinemate.

Thundercracker wordlessly placed a hand on Skywarp's shoulder, catching his wingmate's optics and halting the fruitless scans. Skywarp melted into him, wrapped his arms around Thundercracker's midsection and crushed their chassis together in search of the familiar pulse of his spark.

"Why did you keep the bond closed? Why the frag didn't you let us know where you were? We-I thought you had offlined."

Fear, anger, and pain both physical and mental poured from Skywarp through the shared bond. Starscream was also worried, but it was apparent he was trying to hide it behind a scolding wave of annoyance.

Thundercracker washed comfort and assurance over his trinemates as he had often done in the past while rubbing Skywarp between his wings. "I had things under control," he rumbled confidently.

"You're a horrible, lying glitch!" Skywarp pounded a fist into Thundercracker's side; denting metal plating that had only just healed, causing a sharp flare of pain that made him crumple inwards. Skywarp felt it through the bond and sent a wordless apology that only barely outweighed his rage while nursing the re-damaged wound.

"There's no way you had things under control!" Skywarp barked again, but with less force. "You were in so much pain, you needed help, but you slammed the bonds shut making it impossible to find you. We tracked your last location, looked for your residual energy, but all we found was a dead end at a pool of dried energon and deactivated drones. We thought you had been captured."

Thundercracker crooned to his trinemate, trying to quell his worries. "I'm right here, nothing happened that couldn't be fixed. I was never captured by Autobots."

"I still don't believe you, and I know Starscream won't." Skywarp growled as he tightened his hold on Thundercracker. The air around them rippled, distorting as if they were surrounded by steam. Thundercracker braced himself as Skywarp warped them back to base where their third trinemate was anxiously waiting.


End file.
